After Mir and Misty left, Dia remained next to Jack. It was only after a moment that she turned to Jack.

“Hey Jack? Can you travel outside like Mir and Misty?” Dia asked.

“Nope, don got de monsta core.” He said.

“What is a monster core?” Dia asked but a window appeared upon her question.

Monster Core

Monster cores are an essential tool for dungeon monsters to survive outside of the dungeon as well as for them to freely wander the dungeon without losing power in the lower floors. A monster with a monster core will not have to fear having his or her power restricted on weaker floors and can wander the dungeon, their power will not drop from their current limit or restriction, this includes floor bosses who possess sentience.

A dungeon boss with a monster core, but not a small budding personality will have a possibility to develop complete sentience if given enough time.

Only the dungeon conscious can gift a monster core to the dungeon creatures unless a more powerful being gifts them.

Monster cores are also the only way for a dungeon to capture one of the sentient races and the result would corrupt them into demons or a more primitive form.

A monster with a core when breeding will cause the next generation to be born with a core.

Parts were confusing for her, but she could see the one about her being the one that could gift them and how bosses will not get weaker as they move around.

“Jack! Jack!” Dia shouted and gestured to come closer.

He bent down as she dipped her hand in the quarter filled pond of mana water. Then she waved her hand to him. He seemed to connect the dots when he puts together the fact that a window appeared and she was asking about monster cores.

He sticks out his finger near her and she touches it and thinks to give him a monster core.

At once the water began to boil, rise and gather in front of his chest before forming a fist sized crystal that slowly entered his chest. Inside him it stopped right beside his heart in a small space that was as if made for the crystal.

“Oh my! Mighty tanks dear missy.” he said with a gentle grin as he sat back and bellowed out a loud laugh.

In his hand the wooden mallet was raised before he placed it down.

“Dis here is a tiny place.” He said before raising his empty hand to his mouth and blew out.

WHISTLE!

As if hearing a work shift whistle, the gnomes suddenly popped out of the ground followed by hundreds of wisps who began to float out.

“Don git to maken dis lan bigger.” He said to the earth beings.

“Bu boss! Dis ain getten bigga wit out invaders.” A gnome said.

“Hmph.” He frowned and sighed and shooed them away. “Mah as well remodel!” He said and found a clear spot, lifted the hammer and brought it down. At once a wave spread throughout the island.

The round island began to spread as the excess rock at the bottom of the island began to move up to the sides.

The gnome village, Dia saw it simply moving upwards and soon it popped out near her dungeon core beyond the circle river that isolated it.

Everything was in a fuss as it tried to hold on. All the while, Dia’s eyes were wide and her little mouth was hanging open as she experienced the power of her gentle giant.

Soon the island almost doubled in size and most of the plants were pushed further along while most of the nearby rivers were erased and gave Jack walking room.

“Ah! Dat is betta!” He said and pat the ground causing it to shake a bit before he lay down.

“Blast it boss! De ya kno dat yeh amost keeled us!” A gnome shouted at the giant.

“Na ah dint! I mad yer village come up!” he said.

“We wan underground!” The gnome shouted and huffed off as the gnomes began to work on covering their village with earth.

They used the earth wisps as part of the work force to speed it up and after the earth dome was made the dome sank into the ground.

Dia looked and saw that the rock bed that had several dozens of meters at the lowest point had been reduced by more than half. The gnomes had returned to their spot underground and were safely remaking the channels that earth wisps would use to channel earth mana into the rocks.

She blinked as she noticed some glittering rocks and went to the first floor to see and saw similar things.

When she noticed, she felt the rock and discovered a really hard rock concentrated at one spot in each rock. She looked at them confused then looked all around noticing something similar on the island clouds where the sylphs and the air wisps were living, on the top layer of the earth there were small ones that felt like fire and feeling around these, Dia could feel the little salamanders sleeping and living along these rock and lastly at the bottom of all the little rivers near where nixies play small gems that felt like water were forming. They were the size of grains of sand, but they were there.

She returned to Jack who had sat up and was carefully walking around and gathering a few big rocks that appeared thanks to his big hit. He grouped them all together and struck the pile. Soon the rocks melted and formed one big platform.

“Ah~! Tim fir a rest!” He said and dropped down.

Dia giggled and after a moment she flew down and dropped on his big belly. Jack noticed and after taking a look he smiled and went to sleep.

Down on the surface Mir and Misty appeared in the throne room.

“Sorry for coming unannounced.” Mir called as she appeared and landed before withdrawing her wings and walking until she was near the queen. However, suddenly she felt a powerful spell coming and she turned as her staff transformed into a spear. It glowed green and as she looked at the powerful spinning fireball her eyes focus on one point. She thrust out the spear and hit the tip of the fireball. Instantly the green glow entered the fireball like a needle and hit the core of the spell causing it to disperse like a dud bomb.

She glared at the culprit who stared at her with a bit of shock. Her wings spread and suddenly she accelerated and appeared in front of Clover grabbing his neck and smashing him against the wall.

“Who are you!” Mir said.

Clover grinned, “Look… sister! This is…. What you want… to make a… contract with!” Clover said.

Mir took a sideways glance only to see a furious queen.

Mir pulled the idiot back and crashed him into the wall before letting him go and walking back to the queen.

“I will not take that personally, don’t worry. I can see it wasn’t your plan. Now then, are you ready to negotiate?” Mir asked.

The queen looked at her with a sincere happy glance before it turned fierce.

“Someone drag that moron of a brother here so that he can advise me.” the queen fumed.

Mir raised a brow. “Not the best advisor.” Mir commented and the queen nodded.

“Alright, can you first please tell us about the dungeon? We haven’t been able to enter and are still trying to clear out the monsters.” The queen said.

Mir nodded at Misty who flew up and began to describe the dungeon and a few of the ways the dungeon worked including the fact that it just needed the presence of people instead of killing them to grow.

“So the dungeon isn’t dangerous? What benefits do we get?” The queen said skeptical.

“Oh no, the dungeon is far from safe. There are areas that are ‘safe’ on the islands, but with the continuous expansion of the dungeon’s floors eventually the bridges connecting the islands will break and the islands will slowly drift as they expand. Eventually the need for boats to cross will be necessary and the cloud sea is very dangerous. At this time it's still safe and not many of the monsters are overly dangerous, but even on the first floor treants exist.” Misty explained.

The queen’s eye twitched hearing this since treants are quite strong against groups, but not overly powerful that it can’t die to an F rank since their ‘face’ is their weak point and a single hit would cause considerable damage.

“Oh~! The level for the first floor is higher due to the possibility to being able to skip all the rooms by flying.” Clover said in a mocking tone.

“Well the dungeon lacks many flying creatures in the first floor mainly due to Dia not liking ‘ugly’ monsters and she hasn’t actively modified the animals so most of it is natural animals or mana beasts. She also hasn’t added monster cores yet.” Misty said.

“Monster cores are secondary, only upper floor monsters with intelligence have it anyway since there is no use for weaker monsters to have it.” the queen said. “Since the dungeon isn’t overly powerful and is still young, the danger level is still low so what kind of conditions would you have?” The queen asked.

“First off is the basic, we want two dungeon villages built. The first is at the base of the beanstalk that is the entrance of the dungeon and the second is on the first island which is a safe zone with no dangers at all.” Misty said.

“Why do you need two villages?” Clover frowned.

“Because Dia is a cloud dungeon, we cannot remain in one place for too long or else the vegetation will never receive sunlight. This goes with condition two, we want to know areas that we can set up other dungeon towns, where we can rotate between the towns periodically so that there is no danger of messing up the natural order and how much sunlight each region gets.” Misty explained.

Hearing the words, a few people looked outside and indeed the clouds are present even when dungeons live in different dimensions they create a camouflage like how underground dungeons make caves. They hide underground making it easier to hide, but a cloud dungeon will use clouds to hide inside. However, cave dungeons that reside underground would not openly disturb what is outside.

“It will take time for us to figure this out and we need to talk, but we need to know the resources available.” the queen asked.

“Besides lesser and common herbs, magic wood and magic flowers are available on the first floor. We also have small flying fish that adapted and their number is increasing daily. Soon they will be able to be fished. These small fish live in shallow waters and there is also crabs and shrimp which aren’t even complete monsters and can be cultivated.” Mir explained.

Besides the magic wood and flowers which are weapon and potion items, to get seafood in the forest is a really big appeal.

“What are the dangers of this cloud sea?” The queen asked.

“It’s called the sky sharks. They were born from sea sharks that adapted to the cloud sea and became monsters. The number present on the first floor are small and are concentrated on the second floor, but they still can kill and have a strength that needs a strong F rank adventurer party to fight. However, they don’t appear near the islands so within a 30 meter radius of any island cloud or sky island turtle is safe.” Mir explained.

“With the first and second conditions this is good enough.” the queen said satisfied. “Is there more?”

“Yes, we currently only have two floors due to the restriction to Dia’s growth. Her strongest monster besides her strongest dungeon boss is as strong as an F or E rank on the second floor.” Mir began.

“What are the bosses!” Clover asked outright.

Mir glared at him before ignoring him and continuing. “As I was saying, due to her low strength we want to limit the rank of adventurers entering to E rank and prohibit them from entering the main island of the second floor. This condition will update with each floor and prohibit those from entering the island of the top most floor, but the rank of the adventurers allowed in will raise as the dungeon grows stronger.” Mir said.

“What about researchers like me and my disciples?” Clover asked.

“Obviously you will all be blocked because such a powerful mage could become a danger to Dia who is a naive little 4 year old girl.” Mir said.

“I don’t agree!” He blurted out.

“It’s not up to you Clover.” The queen glared at him.

“How do you know that the dungeon really is a 4 year old brat! Unless they take us to the dungeon, show us the brat and gives us a tour of every floor of the dungeon I won’t agree to this!” Clover shouted.

“ENOUGH! This has nothing to do with you Clover! This is a chance at prosperity for our nation, I will not have your tantrum ruining this for us!” the queen hissed at him.

“I will not change my mind! I will not believe the words of monsters! Hmpf, wood elf fairy! Biggest bullshit I ever heard! Everyone knows that elves have been present since the start of the world as we look now and there are only stories of elves being connected to fairies.” Clover said.

“Such a tiny boy like you has no say if it is true or not. Although I look like this, until some time ago when I screwed up and got punished by her great goddess Yolida to be a monster of Dia’s dungeon, I was a commanding officer that monitored, controlled and trained the dungeon fairies of all three worlds, Heaven, Hell and this world! I have lived for over 100,000 years while you, little man, have at most several centuries! Don’t humiliate yourself with your low level knowledge of world history when speaking with me!” Mir said narrowing her eyes.

“Forgive this idiot! Please someone get this idiot out of here!” The queen called out and a royal guard walked up and gestured.

“I will not leave during this important meeting.” He said.

“Leave… now!” The queen hissed, but he crossed his arms. The result was a small ‘fragile’ fist connecting with his nose causing a crack and him falling backwards.

“Take him away.” the queen said and the elven knights took Clover away as the queen rubbed her head. “I'm truly sorry.” The queen said.

“There are all kinds of people in this world. That said if ‘you’ wish to visit the dungeon I can escort you. As for that idiot, if he is so fixed on this then have him wear magic restraints and if he wants his disciples to come then only his youngest and weakest.” Mir said.

“It… would help us understand what we are working with.” She said with a wry smile.

From there they agreed to continue in the dungeon. Clover was allowed to come chained up and he called his youngest disciple, but before arriving he stopped the boy.

“When the soul of the dungeon appears unseal my hands.” He said and the boy nodded. All the way the boy examined the restraints and soon a group of knight, the queen and some nobles were on magic boats that took them over. Clover used his own, but had to have his disciple activate it and an elf knight drive it for him.

When they approached the entrance, several leaves near the top opened creating a kind of dock for the boats and the rest of the way they walked.

As expected, walking through parted clouds was an uncommon sensation for everyone and the elven knights were at the front in case of an ambush, but they were guaranteed that this area is under a cloud island which was a safe zone and perfectly safe due to being the entrance.

As soon as they reached the last step and came to the much brighter first floor, entering the dungeon dimension, they were stunned as they took a step onto clouds and did not sink.

Some of them even tested how solid it was but were amazed beyond belief to see a world in the clouds. The slightly blue clouds that met with the white clouds they stood on drew their attention and soon one of them walked over and felt the water.

“Wow! This is water.” He said and bent over and cupped the cloud water that turned into liquid water and drank. “Clean pure water!” He shouted

“WOW!” Someone shouted and everyone saw him pointing and only when they looked did they figure out why. In the distance was a large island with a similar beanstalk coming out of its center.

The queen was in utter shock to see this land in the sky.

She then looked around and realized the cloud island was very wide, about 500 meters in diameter and formed a small slope with the top being where the opening they came from was.

“A small prospering village would surely fit here.” She muttered and saw the flowers and palm trees. The sounds of waves that was like the ocean made her enter a dazed state, but a voice that had irritated her far too much today broke that.

“Where is the so called 4 year old brat dungeon! Bring her out!” Clover shouted and received a death glare from the queen.

“Hmpf!” Mir snorted.

“Want me to get her?” Misty asked.

“Fine, but have the monsters on alert. If he tries anything then…” Mir didn’t finish, but Misty knew and nodded before flying away.

“Just wait a bit and Dia will come.” Mir announced, but her staff was completely ready to attack.

After ten minutes they suddenly heard a loud rustle and everyone turned together discovering the source was the beanstalk that was shaking.

Once, then twice and suddenly a big foot appeared and slowly another. Soon a huge body appeared and once it reached halfway it dropped.

BOOM!

The entire island shakes and a cloud of dust rises before the culprit stands up, looks at the island and slowly starts to walk over.

Everyone gathers around the queen and points their spears and readies their magic.

“Calm down!” Mir shouted causing eyes to draw towards her.

“How do you expect us to calm down when a half giant is coming!” Clover shouted. “Sister quickly unbind me!”

“Stupid elf, you wanted to see the boss of the second floor, this is it.” Mir said.

Soon the footsteps could be heard as it jumped between the islands covering dozens of meters enough to jump from one island with a single bound.

They all swallowed and soon it jumped to the tenth and final island, causing the island they were on to tremble.

Suddenly Misty appeared from the left shoulder and flew down. “Well I got her, but she wouldn’t leave without Jack.” Misty told Mir.

Mir held her forehead and sighed, “At least we don’t need to worry about them attacking.” Mir muttered. “Dia! Please come meet the queen!”

Jack turned his head and held his left hand to his elbow, but looked confused and began to look around all the while his right hand held firmly his wooden mallet.

“Dear missy? Hmm…” Jack stops before raising his eyes to look up. He then grabbed his hat, took it off and looked inside to find Dia hiding inside. “Missy, wacha don in der?” he asked Dia who shook her head and grabbed the hat not letting go.

He bent down and in front of Mir he began to shake the hat and with Mir stretching her arms out, eventually the ghost of the little girl fell out into Mir’s arms.

“I present you Dia.” Mir said turning Dia towards the queen, but she quickly turned and did a strong hug on Mir like a little monkey.

Everyone had their jaws dropped seeing the little girl.

“Clover… aren’t the dungeon consciouses normally invisible?” The queen asked.

“Yes… but sometimes they can make a silhouette appear.” Clover replied.

“We don’t know why, but when I became a thorn guardian, she got scared to the extreme and formed a ghost body that can physically touch things.” Mir said. “Dia, come on, at least look at the queen.”

Dia grabbed on tighter making her sigh.

“Did you see enough?” Mir asked.

The queen called off the men and walked forward.

Clover was two steps behind her and took a glance at his disciple who did a discreet nod and began to chant a spell in an extremely quiet voice.

“Hello, my name is Queen Felicia Rosetta can you tell me your name?” The queen asked.

Dia peeked out and looked at the queen before blushing completely.

“D-Dia… White… y-you’re so… p-pretty.” Dia muttered and unconsciously the queen made a gentle smile.

Elves have a low birth rate so they are very attached to their children and love to see a child happy.

“Thank you, you’re cute you know, can I see your face?” the queen asked.

“Stop playing with her, sister! This is the dungeon’s soul so stop being so courteous!” Clover spat out.

Felicia frowned, but Dia also got mad and pointed her face out and stuck her little tongue out.

“Ugly! Old! Stinky! I don’t like you! Mir, make him leave!” Dia said.

Clover’s face turned bright red and even some of the knights discreetly covered their lips to muffle their laughs.

“You little brat! I am a great archmage! I can turn you into ash with a single thought!” He shouted.

“WAH!! Mir he is scary! I don’t want him here!” Dia cried and tried to hide in Mir’s arms.

Click!

Suddenly the restraints on Clover’s arms fell off and his eyes turned sharp as he lifted his arms and a complex chilling spell began to form in his hand.

Felicia was 1 meter away from Dia, but he had stopped 5 meters from them so that he wouldn’t be stopped by his sister or Mir.

“Now I got you!” He said and a grey ball of light left his hand, but as it got half a meter from his hands a very thick shadow with a wooden mallet appeared over him and impacted the spell with startling speed, creating a powerful shockwave that caused the weaker members to be pushed backed.

The wooden mallet gave off a green glow which caused the grey ball formed by the spell to be covered in numerous cracks before it shattered completely and the mallet continued on.

Clover rapidly lifted up over ten layers of thick mana barriers, but the glowing wooden mallet broke through them and slammed into Clovers chest like a raging bull. He instantly coughed up blood and shot back like a bullet into the island cloud carving a hole through the hill, coming out the other side and then finally skipped across the cloud sea.

He bounced off the cloud sea five times before he finally stopped, but a moment later a massive feathered shark burst out of the cloud sea roaring.

Clover and everyone’s eyes turned wide seeing the shark, but with him in a desperate situation he didn’t even hold back and shot a powerful blast of lightning, carving a hole through the shark and even into the second floor creating a hole that quickly closed up.

Clover sighed, but this brought tremendous pain as all his ribs were shattered and piercing his lungs. He quickly began to cast multiple healing spells and slowly fixed his broken body before it failed on him. He then took out a bottle of elixir and drank it before he took to the air with disheveled hair and bloodshot eyes as he glared at Jack.

“You cur! You dare hit me!” Clover said in a hoarse voice.

He was trying his best to talk with his injuries. Even with healing, he was in great pain as the bone shards were being pushed out of his lungs and organs and being put into place while his internal bleeding was slowly healed.

“Don kid yer self boy! Dear missy don like yous so get, while ah am still being nice.” Jack said in a much more serious tone as he started to show his irritation.

Dia quickly jumped out of Mir’s hands and flew into Jack’s hat.

“Jack! Make him go away!” Dia shouted.

Jack just glared at Clover while the man in question was still trying to heal. Suddenly Felicia appeared above him with a teleportation spell and her fist connected with the back of his head, causing him to fly right into the cloud island face first and be buried there. After receiving such two heavy hits so soon, he completely blacked out.

Felicia was completely enraged this time. She walked over, dragged him out and woke him up with a stomp between his legs. While holding his legs and stomping with her heel, which happened to be in a pair of high heeled slippers. “The one AND ONLY time you had to be a sane calculative person you end up being a dumbass JUST BECAUSE it was in a dungeon that father and mother died. You HAD to jeopardize our nation’s chances DIDN’T YOU!” she shouted as she put even more pressure on her heel and pulled him closer.

The archmage that never felt so much humiliation was awoken abruptly with his manhood in jeopardy and was completely in a daze from the hit.

All the men paled as they watched the torture session and it even caused Jack to shiver at the merciless stomping.

After a nice long time she stopped and turned to her men. “Escort my brother to the dungeons and take the brat of his who undid the restraints with him. Anyone that tries to stop you can go join him in the dungeons.” The queen said.

The guards snapped out of it and quickly ran over to put on new restraints on both hands and feet. Then, to make sure he doesn’t act up, one of them punched Clover in the face causing him to black out again. The other threw him over his shoulder like a sack of grain and bowed in Dia’s direction before excusing themselves.

Felicia on the other hand walked over and bent down. “I am really sorry about my stupid brother please forgive us!” She said.

Dia peeked out and seeing that Clover was gone she slowly came down and fidgeted.

“I-it’s okay… you’re nice.” Dia muttered and quickly flew in and kissed the queen’s cheeks before flying back into Jack’s hat.

She was a bit surprised before a smile appeared on her a face. “I guess she doesn’t mind.” Mir said.

“M-mir! Um…. I'm hungry.” Dia said peeking out.

“Wait… she gets hungry?” the queen asked and the two fairies just smiled wearily and nodded before Misty flew off and Mir looked around. When Mir found a flat area, she stuck her staff in the ground and made it transform into a table and then some chairs.

“Let’s have a few fruit snacks first before we talk more?” Mir asked and sat down.

The queen was smiled bewildered before sitting down. She was soon followed by the nobles and to her surprise Dia appeared asking if she could sit with her. When Felicia agreed, the little girl sat on her lap with a blush and a small smile.